University of Virginia President Jim Ryan was awarded a $200,000 bonus during a closed session of the June 3 Board of Visitors meeting, The Cavalier Daily student newspaper has revealed. The university froze salaries for all employees during the early months of the COVID-19 epidemic, and Ryan and other senior officials took a 10% pay cut.
Said Rector Whittington Clement: “When the situation this year became clearer and we had a highly successful handling of COVID-19, we think the University did as well as, if not better, than any institution of higher learning in making the adjustments necessary to COVID-19, we thought that it was appropriate to give him a bonus.”
According to the terms of his 2018 employment contract, Ryan was entitled to a performance bonus of up to $100,000 based upon “achievement of mutually agreed upon performance objectives determined by the Board of Visitors and Mr. Ryan.” When Bacon’s Rebellion used the Freedom of Information Act in November 2021 to obtain those performance criteria, the university denied the request.
